BAJR follow-up to Petition

[BAJR Host]

Please feel free to use this as a scratchpad to prepare a document followup to the petition...

only the best grammar please!

"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

[ecmgardner]

I’d like to qualify this with a statement that I am slightly playing devil’s advocate and do not pretend to have knowledge of the intricacies of senior archaeological management. However I would be very interested to hear how my perspective should be amended.

I think it is an indictment on professional archaeology that it was not an archaeologist who initiated the petition on 10 Downing Street’s website – but when I last check 526 of us have shown some solidarity (despite the wording!)

Many jobs are badly paid and their practitioners work in worse conditions than archaeologists. What makes the plight of archaeologists any worse than other graduate professions?

Taking salary as a case in point and using figures from Reading University website (http://www.careers.reading.ac.uk/graduat...trends.asp) the median salary in 2006 for a new graduate was £21,000 (the range was between £14,000 and £37,000). Using BAJR 07/08 figures that puts a minimum trainee’s salary 36% below the median.

So, we are comparable despite being below the lowest starting salary. What is striking is that to reach the median starting salary of £21,000 you need to reach BAJR grade 5/6. Which translates to many, many years.

I believe the vicious circle is in funding for archaeology. The biggest problem I see is that developers will not pay for archaeology. Price fixing is illegal and units under-cut each other, sabotaging our own profession.

I would suggest that with proposed changes in the planning law and a heritage white paper we should be suggesting amendments to this legislation.

I consider that there should be a government responsibility for our heritage and I am sure I am not alone in the occasional feeling that we, as a group, sometimes are the only ones who care about preserving this heritage for posterity and the nation.

Hope the grammar’s ok?

[Tim]

Quote "So, we are comparable despite being below the lowest starting salary. What is striking is that to reach the median starting salary of £21,000 you need to reach BAJR grade 5/6. Which translates to many, many years."

Or be parachuted into a well paid job because you come from the British upper class/caste, and/or by your lover, friends or family.



"Freedom of ideas is one thing, freedom of the purse is quite another". Edward Harris

[Illuminated]

how about starting with something like 'Would you think it is the mark of a civilised society to cherish, protect and promote it's history and sense of self? - Is the United Kingdom a civilised society?'

That's a very rough draft type thing, and may need cleverer phrasing to rob it of any (unintended) nationalistic sounding bias.

[BAJR Host]

Like it.... really we have to challange the 'We cherish heritage' with ... and that costs money... and needs protection

"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

[1man1desk]

posted by ecmgardner:

quote:The biggest problem I see is that developers will not pay for archaeology.

They do pay for archaeology, because they have no choice. However, in a market economy, they don't pay any more than they have to to get the work done and either obtain their planning consent or discharge a planning condition. Competitive tendering is therefore a constraint on potential pay increases.
However, going over to a non-market system without competitive tendering is not a realistic solution (and not only because it is not on offer). Public funding would be at the mercy of local/national government spending priorities, and the present situation with the curatorial service in Northamptonshire indicates how far that would get us. Remember, we operated on such a system up to 1990, and there was a lot less money available than has been the case since then. Standards also suffer under such a system, as units with local monopolies have no incentive to improve or change.

quote:I consider that there should be a government responsibility for our heritage and I am sure I am not alone in the occasional feeling that we, as a group, sometimes are the only ones who care about preserving this heritage for posterity and the nation.

If we as a group believe that we are the only ones who care about heritage, then there is no justification for asking either the government (funded by everyone else's taxes) or developers to pay for it.
Personally, though, I think that we (archaeologists) as a group are very far from being the only people to care, so the point doesn't arise.

1man1desk

to let, fully furnished

[BAJR Host]

So summarising parts of the APAPG report to help us have a template
http://www.appag.org.uk/

23....ensure that its sponsored bodies with archaeological responsibilities have sufficient resources to carry out their core functions. In addition, the grant-giving bodies for which it has responsibility, such as the Heritage Lottery Fund should also focus on this key objective.

32. There is an urgent need to improve pay and conditions for employment in field archaeology so that they are commensurate with graduate entry level in allied professions such as local authority planning officers, civil engineers and university lecturers. The Institute of Field Archaeology, working with English Heritage and the other national heritage agencies and Prospect, should create a structure for training and qualifications related to career development that will set standards for best practice in archaeological work, one in which employers are obliged to support the continuing professional development of staff. Only those contractors who meet these standards should be eligible to bid for developer-funded work. In the longer term, the current fragmented commercial unit system which has resulted from competitive tendering should be replaced with a more stable regional, or more local framework of archaeological organisations.

49. Consideration should be given to making the provision of information about archaeological developments to local communities a statutory obligation under the planning process and for the results to be published. The historic environment should be incorporated in Local Cultural Strategies.

50. There should be a greater role for local archaeologists to play in enhancing community projects. To this end EH should continue to play a lead role in appointing staff in each region to liaise and promote the historic environment, and local authorities should consider developing community archaeology officers. There should be analogous arrangements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

70. The proposed Planning Policy Statement 16 should state that funding for archaeology in mitigation of development projects should always include full provision for assessing, recording, analysing, publishing and archiving the archaeological data in such a way that it is easily accessible to the public. This should form part of the core statement of policy principles and not just be contained in the annexe that recommends best practice. The principle behind such work should be public benefit.

73. The local authority curatorial service should be retained and strengthened. Authorities should be able to combine to provide services jointly. The local authority service should be augmented by the formal link of each authority or group of authorities to a university department, with current or potential research interests in the area, who will act as research leader. In addition recognition of the role and importance of museums in preserving the product of archaeology should be considered.



"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu

[Orkynowot]

Has anyone discussed what the proffesional wage should be? Just wondering is all, because I dont what the wage should be?

May god go with you in all the dark places you must walk.

[m300572]

Well, we could start off with a wage that eeither gives the basic digger a salary that gets him/her to at least the poverty threshold or aim for the median as mentioned above, of £21,000. Given that there are abbout 220 working days in a year (taking off weekends, bank holidays, some holiday time and the like) then costing out diggers at £100 per day, plus the income tax and NI costs to the employee a digger would cost around £130 plus unit overheads (so probably around £200 per day (correct me if this is b*ll*cks, its a long time since I had to cost fieldwork in any way shape or form).

supervisors, POs etc commensurately more.

[BAJR Host]

Special hello to Lurker Barford.. nice to know you spend time reading these forums... if you had been nicer you could have even contributed.



"No job worth doing was ever done on time or under budget.."
Khufu